Did You Know You Can Take A Picture While Multitasking In iOS 7?

Here’s a pretty nifty feature you probably didn’t know it about in iOS 7: it’s possible to take a picture using your iPhone’s camera while looking at the multitasking screen. Here’s how to try it out for yourself.

First of all, you need to have recently used the Camera app so that it’s in the multitasking menu. (If it’s been a while since you used it, and you no longer see a live preview of the app, then it won’t work.) Now, when you double tap the home button, you should see a preview of the camera app on your screen; you can now tap one of the volume buttons to snap a picture.

Admittedly, you probably won’t use this feature a lot, but I’m sure there are times when it could be useful.

Say you’re chatting to a friend in WhatsApp, for example, and you want to send them a picture of your dinner (that’s the trendy thing to do, apparently) — you can just double-tap the home button, snap the picture with a volume key, then jump back into WhatsApp and send it. You didn’t even have to enter the Camera app.

About the author:

Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.

Oak_Alley

Doesn’t work for me, just changes the volume! Possibly because I have iTunes open in the background as well?

timothyevans

Doesn’t work for me, either, but, for whatever reason, I don’t have a live preview of the camera, even when I go straight from the camera to the multitasking list.

prodge6671

Doesn’t work for me. Just changes the volume. I opened camera app, closed, went into multitask and all it does it change the volume.

kennymatic

You’d think it’s just be easier to take a photo from WITHIN Whatsapp.

BlueLightAlarm

Can’t get this to work. If I open any app after having the camera app open then the camera preview on the multitasking screen goes blurred. The only way I can get it to work is if I have the camera app open then enter the multitasking menu but that would be pointless.

mineschan

I got this working , but

ARE YOU KIDDING ME ??You need to go take a photo in camera app before you send it through Whatsapp??

GENIUS?

retinoic

This is a joke of an article and the author clearly did not field test his ‘example’. This ‘nifty feature’ is not a feature of the camera app nor a shortcut to any hidden functionality, but rather reflects the overall functionality of the iOS 7 switcher.

One will note that opening the switcher (multitasking screen) from within any app will keep only the current app in a live view. Hence, the camera app will only appear live if it is being actively used. Not all apps appear to currently support live camera access from the switcher, but this is likely a limitation of the way they currently access the camera APIs.

Additionally, the volume buttons will only function as a camera shutter in the switcher if the current app is actively accessing the those specific APIs. Again, the camera app would need to be actively in-use for this to work.